PLAYER CONFIDENCE - DAN ABRAHAMS

                                              

Noone celebrates goals like one of my favourite Swannies Tom Papley and although it looks like showboating, if you were to dive a bit deeper, it's about generating enthusiasm and celebrating small wins, both which help build great confidence within a game and throughout the entire team.

And as you can see in the image above Paps doesn't just celebrate his own goals, where he fully leap-frogged Hayward after he kicked a goal of his own so now there's a leadership quality being shown in celebrating other people's success as well.

Confidence is another one of those psychological based aspects of football that can't really be measured, or seen, which means a coach simply saying "play with confidence" does sweet FA for most players as they might not even know what playing confidence means, what it looks like or what it even fels like - but they can learn these through training and preparation.

Once again have a deep think about 2 - 3 of these points and work on them between now and the end of the season and see how they can work for you + give Dan a follow if you haven't already - you won't be dissapointed.

CONFIDENCE

• is the memory of great past performances
• optimism is the prediction of the successful execution of controllable tasks
• what do my best games look/feel like?
• what do I look/feel like during them?
• can I visualise that within my preparation?
• strip game goals back to controllables but make sure to practice them positive intent
• learn how and when to use self-talk
• avoid extreme language such as must, have to etc as it can increase anxiety
• be task oriented over performance oriented
• accept mistakes and average as they will happen
• share team and individual success stories as much as possible
• reflect on team and individual strengths often but accept areas to improve
• acknowledge characteristics that help and hinder you
• positive intent is a psychological skill and means to engage in an approach behaviour (rather than avoidant behaviour-inhibition) to execute actions in a positive manner

LOW SELF BELIEF

• will have an extreme narrative (can't, awful, diatster, must etc)
• will find a model of success useful
• will need to draw on successful past performances
• will need to shift from an ego focus to a mastery one
• to build it turn the feeling of threat into the feeling of challenge ahead of a tough game
• reinforce great performances
• help them focus on what they can control
• set attainable/positive goals
• get rid of extreme language
• encourage teammate support

SHY PLAYERS

• aren’t necessarily introverted but anxious about being rejected (neuroticism)
• help them by empathising with their shy behaviours
• avoid publically labelling them (but doing so privately)
• avoid putting them in the spotlight and set small social goals
• help them develop a game face then help them express themselves in the style of their game face
• could be a lack of assertiveness (extraversion)

PRE-GAME ANXIOUSNESS

• help them set objectives that are specific/controllable and positive (focused on what they want)
• help them breath correctly
• help them rationalising thoughts (question must's/have to’s etc)
• help them develop a game face

PRE-GAME SELF TALK

• to play with a positive intent/destructive inhibition, with an attention that’s relentelessly on-task or often distracted, at an optimal intensity/subject to drops and rises in activation

REGAINING CONFIDENCE IN-GAME

• trigger adjectives (descriptors of how they want to play/who they want to be – relentless etc)
• use energising self talk
• exhibit good body language
• provide social support via task/instructional cues